


Now who will pray for Babylon?

by WhyWhyNot



Series: A Host and a Legion [4]
Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Blanket Permission, Body Horror, Character Turned Into a Ghost, Gen, Partial Mind Control, Revenge, Suicidal Thoughts, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-29
Updated: 2020-03-09
Packaged: 2020-03-29 12:31:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 2,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19019989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhyWhyNot/pseuds/WhyWhyNot
Summary: Frank Castle wants the men responsible for his family's death to pay.He's not the only one.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Let the devil out](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4089436) by [Dissenter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dissenter/pseuds/Dissenter). 



> Check chapter twelve to see the inspiration for Lisa.

“One batch,” says Frank.

“Two batch”

“Penny”

“And dime”

Frank presses the trigger, and through the scope of his riffle he sees his target fall. The blood shines like black ink under the streetlights. 

Lisa smiles. 

\---

When Frank wakes up, Lisa is sitting by his bed.

He stares at her for a while.

(Red splatters, absurdly bright against the green grass. The thunder of gunshots. _Meat_ where his daughter’s face should be. A bright flash. Nothing.)

“I think I had a nightmare,” he says.  
“I think it was real,” says Lisa.

\---

Frank listens through a fog to the doctor telling him his family is dead.

Maria. Franky. Dead

It’s absurd. It… It doesn’t make _sense_. They were having a _picnic_ in a _park_ , and he just came back from a tour uninjured, he just came back from war, and his family dies having a _picnic_ in a _park_.

It’s absurd. He was the one going to war, and now he came back and they’re dead, as if war followed him home.

He was never supposed to be the one left behind.

\---

Maria was behind Frank. He didn’t see her die. He is, disgustingly, thankful for that.

Lisa was facing him. She saw.

\---

She probably saw Franky die too.

\---

Franky was skewered by a bullet. He remembers that now. It was a sunny day. His bowels _glistened_ in the light.

Frank throws up on the floor. Lisa looks at the sick with detachment.

\---

The white flash, he realizes with a jolt, was probably the bullet he took to the head.

Fucking bullet. Couldn’t do its job right, uh? Couldn’t send him with his family.

\---

Lisa is still there. His daughter, his Lisa, who saw her mom and her brother die. He can’t die yet. He has to take care of her.

\---

“You holding up, Penny?  
\- I want these men to _die_. I want to _kill them_.”

Her voice is so venomous he barely recognizes it.

“But I can’t. I can’t kill them.”

She stands up. It’s the first time he sees her move since he woke up.

“So you will, right? You will kill them, right?”

And a part of him wants to say yes, wants to find every last one of the bastards involved and put them _down_ , but he can’t, can he? Lisa is still there, she needs him, nothing is more important than that.

There’s blood in her hair, _meat_ and _brain_ and shards of bone where her face should be, where the bullet came out of her head, and the only bits left are her mouth and her jaw.

She smiles.

“I really want to see them dead.”


	2. Chapter 2

Frank is throwing up in the bathroom.

Lisa is dead.

_Red splatters, absurdly bright against the green grass. The thunder of gunshots. Meat where Lisa’s face should be. Franky’s insides glistening in the sun._

The nurse is there, fussing over him, asking him what’s wrong, and Lisa is still watching with a mess of flesh instead of a face.

The nurse doesn’t see her.

(Of course the nurse doesn’t see her, doesn’t see the fucked up hallucination his brain came up with in a desperate attempt to…)

(To what? Protect itself? Punish itself?)

(She feels so _real_. Surely, it can’t hurt to pretend for a while?)


	3. Chapter 3

Frank hangs men to meat hooks.

They _deserve_ it.

He did hesitate. For a second, he thought about Lisa, about the product of his grief and madness hanging behind his shoulder, about not doing it, not torturing people in front of his daughter.

(It’s something that came back a lot. He’s aiming at a man, finger on the trigger, ready to send him to the grave, and a flicker of blond hair makes him hesitant, because his little girl shouldn’t see this kind of things.)

And then, Lisa smiles and tell him to _do it, dad_ , angry and vicious and burning for revenge, and he remembers she’s dead.

He always does press the trigger.

These men deserve what they get.


	4. Chapter 4

Frank meets the Devil on a rooftop.

No.

 _Lisa_ meets the Devil on a rooftop.

(She’s laughing. He just got one of the bastard, put him down with a sniper riffle, saw him fall in the circle of his scope, and she’s laughing.)

(She stops laughing to ask _who are you?_ , and Frank swirls on his heels.)

He recognizes the Devil from blurry shoot age on the television screen, pale skin and black clothes and fabric mask over his eyes. The Devil is facing _Lisa_ , not him, and sits crossed legs on the roof before answering, so that their heads are on the same level.

“Some people says I’m the Devil.  
\- Are you?”

His tone and smile are playful, but Frank can feel the bitterness underneath.

“Maybe.”

And all at once, Frank realizes that if the Devil is talking to _Lisa_ , it means she’s really there.


	5. Chapter 5

Frank is tired.

(Frank is always tired now. It’s like walking with water up to his tighs, each step slow and hard and so easy to trip and fall, like cotton in his head, sounds and tastes muted and the world lost in a dull grey fog, like the corpses of his family strapped to his back, a crushing weight pushing him _down_. Only when he presses the trigger, when he sees his targets fall bloody and dead, does he get a moment, a flash, of clarity.)

Frank is tired. So _tired_.

He cannot find in himself the strength to react.

“You’re real.”

Lisa stills.

“Yes. I’m real.”

There’s a splatter of brain matter on her shoulder. Frank can’t get it out of his head.

(It’s easier to deal with than the mix of brain and bone shards that took the place of his daughter’s face, and she’s _real, it’s really her face_ , and it may be a good thing that he is too tired to react.)

“I’m sorry, dad, I’m so sorry...”

She’s crying, or trying to, but she has no eyes to shed tears, and what is left of Frank’s heart breaks a little more.

“Shhhh, shhh, Lizzy-Penny, it’s alright, everything will be alright…”

(They both know it’s a lie. But what else can he says?)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I may have broken my own heart.
> 
> If anyone is interested on Frank's adventure with the supernatural on a far more light-hearted tone, I strongly recommend doctor Strange/Punisher : Magic bullets. If the promise of the interactions between these two and incredibly lame puns isn't enough, knowing that Frank gives a pep talk to a plane should be.


	6. Chapter 6

Frank is hungry.

(Frank is always hungry now. There’s fog in his head and hunger in his belly and Lisa’s laugh and hatred over his shoulder, and the only moments that feel right are when he sees his enemies die.)

(There’s always fog in his head no matter how much he sleeps, always hunger in his belly no matter how much he eats, always Lisa laughing over his shoulder, full of hatred and anger and grief and telling him to _go on and go on and keep going_ , and he doesn’t know how much longer he will be able to.)

Frank is hungry, and tired, and the Lisa behind his shoulder is _real_ and a part of him thinks he should _stop_ , he should stop and take care of her, keep her safe from all this violence and he _tries_ , he tries to stop but _they killed them_ , they’re all _dead_ , Franky and Maria and Lisa and himself, they all _died_ at the carousel, they all died and the only moments his mind feels clear, the only moments he can hear Lisa laugh is when he puts a target into the ground.

Frank cannot stop.


	7. Chapter 7

They have a dog now. His name is Max.

Lisa is _thrilled_.

(She’s been harassing them for one since she was five. Frank wouldn’t have minded, but she was too young to take care of one herself and Maria thought adding a dog to two children would be too much during Frank’s tours.)

(But Frank was back, and Lisa had grown, and they had talked, Maria and him, and decided they would go to a shelter for her birthday, rescue a dog, give him a chance at a new life.)

(It’s still a rescue, even though instead of clean cages and eager staff there are rusty chains, and corpses, and blood pouring out of a dead dog where Max ripped out his throat. Even though it’s not Lisa’s birthday.)

They have a dog now. Lisa is thrilled.

(Frank thinks about Maria and does his best not to curl up and cry.)


	8. Chapter 8

Frank can’t move.

Everything hurts, and _Frank can’t move_.

Things are… Bad.

 

They zip-tied him to a chair.

(It’s not the first time. But torture never gets easier.)

They started with their fists. They punched him, in the place just below the ribs until breathing became a trial, in the head until a red haze swallowed them all, they kept hitting until the room spinned and Frank started to think he might throw up.

And then, they take bury a _drill_ in his _foot_ , and he can feel it scrap against the bone, and he thinks he might be shouting, and _they’re still hitting him_.

His last conscious thought is to be glad Lisa isn’t there to see that.


	9. Chapter 9

Frank wakes up in a bed.

It’s a good bed. Very soft. He’s pretty sure the sheets are silk.

It doesn’t make any sense.

(He should open his eyes, get up, check his surroundings, get himself to safety, but he’s _tired_ , he’s _so tired_ , he just wants to _sleep_.)

(He just wants to sleep and then never wake up.)

“Dad?” asks Lisa.

Frank is _tired_ , so _tired_ , and opening his eyeseyes to take in his surroundings is the hardest thing he has ever done.

(Since the last time he had to get up.)

He’s lying on a bed in what looks to be a bedroom. Another bed is pressed against the opposite wall, and the wardrobe looks like it was picked up on the sidewalk on garbage day, with a corner held together with ducktape. The walls are bare, except for the crucifix nailed over the door, and from this angle, all he can see through the window are half a dozen wind-chimes hanging right outside of it. The room smells faintly like apples. 

Footsteps. Right outside the door. 

Frank pretends to be still asleep.

The door opens.

“We know you are awake, Mister Castle.” says a woman’s voice.

He looks at her. She’s tall and dark-skinned, with pink and blue cornrows and the assorted lipstick. There’s a man beside her, with round sunglasses and the reddest hair Frank has ever seen.

“Don’t worry,” says the man. “We’re here to help you.”

Help him?

“Who…” Frank pauses to swallow. His tongue feels dry and heavy. “Who are you?”

They give him identical smiles.

“Some say we’re the Devil,” she says.


	10. Chapter 10

The Devil of Hell’s Kitchen sits on the bed opposite to Frank’s.

Sit. Sits.

Fuck.

He’s going to call the woman Heads, and the man Tails, and be done.

So. Heads and Tails sit on the bed opposite to Frank’s. They hand him dried apples, still warm from the oven.

(So that’s where that smell comes from.)

They tell him he’s dying.

Frank doesn’t mind that much, at first. He’s not afraid of dying. He may even be with Maria and Franky again.

And then, he thinks about _Lisa_. Lisa, who saw her brother and mother die. Lisa who shouldn’t have to lose her father too.

Lisa, who is slowly eating him alive.

(He’s not actually that surprised. He’s hungry now, always, a ravenous void deep in his guts, and no matter how much he eats, he keeps losing more and more weight.)

And it makes sense, really, it explains Lisa’s tears, the strings of _sorrysorrysorry_ when he realized she was _real_.

(It’s still hard to believe, sometimes.)

What will happen to Lisa if he dies?

(What will happen to his little girl, if she loses the thing she needs to eat?)

(And what if she stays, all alone, with the weigh of having killed her own father?)

(No.)

(It won’t come to that.)

(He’ll kill himself first.)

(He’ll kill himself before his daughter, his little girl, his Lisa, is forced to kill him.)

He needs to find another way to feed her.


	11. Chapter 11

Lisa Castle

**Author's Note:**

> Comments motivate me and make me write more!  
> If anyone wants, I would love to talk about the depiction of violence in this fic in contrast with my other works.


End file.
